Junior Cert English

Art - Higher Level

English Paper One: The exam began with the reading comprehension, as always. This year's was on Mary Bück, the Irish astronomer. Personally, I found this to be not overly challenging, though I spent a good forty five minutes answering questions on it. I thought the essay titles were very open ended and relatively easy to work with, though my friend found the speech difficult. I worked with the title Tremendous Silence and wrote about a wake. The Functional question was considered to be tricky by most. Guidelines for workers in a shop was a first for the exam commission to come out with. I did the report instead which I found to be the most challenging part of paper one. Finally, there was media studies. I chose to do the question on the editor and not the report on Rotten Tomatoes. Explaining the job of the editor was pretty main stream. Then we were to give our opinion on the ice bucket challenge which was fun. I went against the writer's alternative. Finally, a page of rambling about politics did the trick on the politics question, I think...English paper two: As always, paper two drains all the energy from junior cert students as you're writing till the end. The questions on the unseen drama weren't overly tricky if I remember correctly. However the studied was more difficult to work with than usual. A sense of place was asked on poetry which shocked many students I'm sure. We then worked with two poems on ocean birds which wasn't overly challenging. The studied novel gave students the option to talk about a character or alternatively pick two words from a list. I used inspiration and gripping for Roll of Thunder. At this stage I was utterly wrecked. The Book Thief was a short extract with two scenes. I found question two and three on this to be tricky. Fortunately we only had to do one of those. The first was pretty workable. Overall, a mediocre paper, which I thought was harder than paper one.

Jane - Higher Level

Paper 1I was delighted with all of paper one. As most English Junior cert paper ones do, it followed a theme form section to the personal writing section, and this year is was astronomy. I found this a very interesting topic which insipred me to choose Stargazing as my personal writing heading. Even though I had planned beforehand to compose a speech, as soon as I saw the word a hundred things jumped out at me so I knew I had to do it!I chose the first option for function writing and I put a twist to it.. I wanted to make it jump out at my examiner for being different.. hopefully they will appreciate it!The media section was pretty nice this year, I chose the film question as reading the first part of the newspaper section nearly put me to sleep! (It was "write about the purpose of a news editor")Paper 2I decided to complete my studied works questions first, as during my pre I didnt get to finish any of my To Kill A Mockingbird question! Anyway I think this is a pretty good idea, all you second years listen up!Usually I opt for the Shakespearean Drama from section one, but today, whatever was in the air, I just couldn't handle reading Shakespeare and went for the other Drama. I have a lot of experience in Drama and so I usually love these questions, today however I found the scene quite mundane. I didnt think there was anything interesting about the passage or the dialouge and I was pretty disappointed about this!Actually, something I've noticed about this year was the use of bullet points in paper one, and having a few adjectives as part of a question and having to chose one and describe it... I found this pretty weird because they had nothing like it in past years.And now, for poetry.. I LOVED the poems! I thought both poems were fantastic and loved answering questions on them! However, even if you didnt like the poems, as a lot of my friends didn't don't be too hard on yourself because the entire question is only worth 30 marks!And now for unseen fiction...I'm not quite sure what was the matter with me today, but I had a feeling that I had a half an hour more than I actually did have (KILLER) and it was 25 past 4 and I still hadn't started the unseen fiction. I literally got no chance to even read the fiction so it was 30 marks completely gone!I was absolutely kicking myself. I have a very good English track record and have a achieved straight A's in the subject since first year, so you can imagine I was very distressed. However, I really did my best, and honestly, thats all I could do. I think if I do get a bad grade for it in September, that I should not take it to heart and not let it interrupt my enjoyment of the subject. At the end of the day, its just a little letter, so honestly, in case anyone else is on my boat... We'll be grand as long as we keep our head high!!

Helen - Higher Level

- English Paper 1 -I felt that English Paper 1 was quite straight forward as it's not a paper which you can study for. The Reading Section was centered around the theme of astronomy which later linked with an optional question later on in the paper, in Personal Writing which was "Stargazing".In Section 2 which was Personal Writing, there was an option of 8 topics. I chose (1) Breaking the mould. I centered this piece in a short story format. It was about a boy who lived in a small conservative town and he's gay. It features the obstacles he must overcome, which includes having to tell his parents about his sexuality. He then begins to campaign for the right to gay marriage in his state. I chose this theme as it is topical and modern with regard to the recent referendum.In Section 3 which was Functional Writing, there was an option between writing a set of customer service guidelines or to write a report based on a survey within your school. I decided to go with the first option which was writing a set of guidelines. Again, I felt this was quite straight forward, as it was mostly common sense with regard to good manners, cleanliness and etiquette.In Section 4 which was Media Studies, I found it was quite relevant as it featured such trends as the "Ice Bucket Challenge" The question for this was centered around the misuse of the social media phenomenon. Question 2 of this section was centered around "Rotten Tomatoes" website, which was all about movie reviews. All in all, Paper 1 went quite well.- Paper Two -The Unseen Drama was a choice between a Shakespearean piece or a more modern piece. I decided to go with the Shakespearean piece as it was the one I was most comfortable with. It was about two lovers who were about to be separated because the male lover was about to revolt against the king. The Other Drama was about a family picnicking on a sunny afternoon in June. Question Two in the Drama section featured your studied piece. I, like a lot of the country had studies Romeo and Juliet. It was interesting to see that within both questions, the staging and how you'd go about staging and performing the play were featured.The Unseen Poetry was a surprise as it featured 2 poems in which you had to answer. The studied poem featured questions such as imagery and setting or to note what the poet had to say about either People and Nature or Adults and Children. I chose imagery and setting and I decided to go with The Daffodils by William Wordsworth.The Unseen Fiction was based on the novel, 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak. This tied in with the World War 2 topic in my history course so this aided my understanding of the questions.The studied piece questions gave a choice between choosing two words to best describe the novel from a list of words. My chosen novel was, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde. I chose the words, 'Gripping' and 'Complex' to describe this piece. The other option was to describe the most interesting characters in your chosen novel which display both strengths and weaknesses.Furthermore, I was happy with how the English papers went.Please note: Blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.

Blog: ISSU Education Officer

Hi! My name is Joanna Siewierska and I am the Education Officer for the Irish Second-Level Students' Union. As the ISSU Education Officer, my term in office has consisted of having to do a lot of research about the JCSA. From training days and chats at conferences, to reading news articles and press statements, having studied the reforms and different opinions about them, I have become a passionate advocate in their favour. I do realise that they are not perfect, but I really believe that they will be better for second-level students in Ireland.However, keeping up with the debate about the reforms has become tiresome for me recently. You see, the teaching unions initial threats and then real industrial action have switched the conversation about the reforms to addressing their concerns, namely, it has switched to assessment related discussion and it's been like this for quite a while now. I do think that this is very important because any reforms to the education system will essentially be brought in by teachers to the classroom. However, I feel like the media have continually focused on one aspect of the Junior Certificate reforms, and that is assessment. This has taken people's attention from the rest of the changes, and people who aren't aware of the full picture have now focused their views on internal assessment instead of giving each aspect of the changes their time.I can understand the concerns around assessment. Honestly, upon hearing about exams being graded by class teachers I too was slightly concerned. But now, I can see that my initial reaction didn't take into account the circumstances which caused the Department of Education and Skills to propose these changes in the first place. It took a lot of time and research for me to finally understand exactly why internal assessment is an absolutely crucial part of the reforms, and I really wish that more people were able to spend this amount of time getting to understand the JCSA.It seems like I'm part of a minority. Strikes and issues over assessment are pretty newsworthy and this sometimes makes me a feel a bit isolated with my views. I love reading interviews with Dr Pasi Sahlberg, such as this one http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/refusal-by-teachers-to-assess-students-is-a-step-back-says-finnish-expert-1.2062095. Sahlberg's views and suggestions are very interesting. In the above article, he comments that the whole concept of assessment needs to change, even beyond internal and external assessment models, so to suit Irish needs. There are more interesting comments made later by Ms Salmon, general secretary of Community and Comprehensive schools which support ISSU's stance that without changing assessment the reforms will become 'redundant'.So the students have spoken, the Principals have spoken, parents and other partners in education have spoken. We are all in favour of the JCSA reforms and in favour of changing the assessment structure for the benefit of our second-level students.So what is the problem? Why haven't we moved forward in relation to the JCSA? I do not want to condemn teachers or anyone who disagrees with just one aspect of change. I want to listen to their concerns and the Department of Education and Skills to address them too. However, there are now barriers in place so we as the ISSU cannot meet with the teacher unions to discuss our differences. Something has to happen to address this.If this blog has left you questioning your own opinion of the JCSA reforms or has drawn your attention to them and you would like some more information about them, in particular something designed for second-level students, then check out the JCSA Document that ISSU has written up and/or request our JCSA toolkit for member schools. They will explain to you in more detail what our union's stance on this topic is, how it is so and why. Hopefully that will help you in shaping your own opinion of these reforms and understanding the different opinions of various partners in education.And remember, we are always keen on hearing back from students, so if you have any comments or questions drop an email to me (joanna@issu.ie) or our secretariat (info@issu.ie) and we'd be delighted to get back to you.All the best,Joanna SiewierskaISSU Education Officer

Well done on your results!

Congratualtions to the Class of 2013!

 The Irish Second-Level Students’ Union would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all examination candidates upon receiving their Leaving Certificate and Leaving Certificate Applied results today. Speaking today, the ISSU Education Officer, Robert C. O’Donnell said;“Today will be the one of the most exciting times in your life, bringing to a close the results of 5 or 6 years of work from 1st year all the way to 6th year, and the beginning of the next chapter of your life. Today relax, and enjoy the opportunity to celebrate your work and your achievements. I and the ISSU would like to congratulate you on your success and hope you are happy with your choices and wish you all the best for the future. Don’t forget that there are plenty of facilities available to students including school guidance counsellors, family & friends , exam helplines and online resources to help students during this time.” ISSU President, Mark Caffrey added;“On behalf of the ISSU I would like to congratulate all Leaving Cert and Leaving Cert Applied students who have put in a lot of hard work over the pas number of years which culminates in today’s results. We are aware that many students still have concerns about the Project Maths syllabus, which is only in its second year of leaving cert examinations. In order to get student feedback on this issue, we are running a survey on www.issu.ie, the results of which we will feedback to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, and the Department of Education and Skills.” The ISSU urges students to use the National Parents’ Council post-primary (NPCpp) exam helpline (1800265165) to seek independent advice from qualified guidance counsellors if you are unsure of your options over the upcoming days. Online advice and support is available from ISSU on issu.ie.

Getting your Leaving Cert results

Leaving Cert results day is different for everyone. There will be people who are dying to find out how they did and people who’d rather hide under the bed. Whatever happens and however you did, it’ll be ok. It is definitively not the be all and end all. Some of history’s brightest people didn't ace their exams or get where they wanted to be straight away.

Online or at school?

You can get your results at your school or from 12 noon online at www.examinations.ie. Do whatever you feel most comfortable with. Going to school can actually be a good option as you’ll be with your friends and you’re all in the same boat, and the camaraderie can get you through. Your principal and teachers should also be around to give you help and advice.That said, you might not want to be surrounded by people and that’s ok too.

Working out the points – take your time, don’t panic

After all the exams, adding together a few numbers might seem like a walk in the park, but with nerves, it’s easy to count things twice or not at all. Take a deep breath, and take your time. If you’re not the best at the old arithmetic, get out your calculator, and if you’re not sure ask someone to double check it for you. There is also a points calculator here.

The CAO offers

Results are out on Wednesday the 14th  August, then come the celebrations (no matter how you did, it’s over, right?) and on Monday 19th August, the ‘first round’ of CAO offers will be sent to your house and uploaded to www.cao.ie – log on to find yours. The ‘second round’ will come out on the 28th August.Each offer will come with a date that you must accept it by – this is usually seven days later, so it’s important to be on the ball in terms of accepting it. There should be instructions about how to do that within the offer. The points required for each course will be published in the newspaper, so you should have a good idea what you might be offered in the coming days. Even if you haven’t hit the nail on the head in terms of points, if you’re not too far off you might still get an offer in the ‘second round’.

The rounds

In the first round, offers will be sent to people who got the required points or more for their CAO choices. In the second round, offers start to go out for any places that haven’t been filled and this keeps going until all places are allocatedIf you got the points for your first choice on either the degree or diploma list in the first round, you’ll be offered those and that’s it– you don’t have the option to pick your second choice, but hopefully you’ll be delighted with your choice.If you got the points for your second, third, or fourth choice on either list in the first round, you will be offered that, but may receive offers of your higher preferences in the second round. It’s ok to go ahead and accept these offers, and change to a higher preference if this arrives in the next week or two. Your latest acceptance will automatically undo any previous acceptances.However, if you deicide you’d like to stick with the original offer, you can, just by ignoring the new offer.In some cases, where too many people got the same points compared to the number of places available, there will be random selection of people accepted. Don’t worry, this doesn't happen very often. You might still get the offer as people accept and turn down places.Offers will continue after the second round until places are filled, and this might take a little while, but it also means that you might have options that you weren't expecting. That said, it’s good to keep making plans in the mean time.

Views, checks and appeals

If you want to view a paper, either because you want to have something re-checked or maybe because you’re thinking of repeating and want to see where you could improve, you need to apply to do this by the 23 August – so next Tuesday. There should be a form in your school that you can fill in.Viewings will take place on the 30th and 31st of August  in your school, and you can bring one person with you – it might be good to ask the teacher of the subject you want viewed, as they should have the most helpful perspective on whether or not you should appeal.To re-check or appeal your result, you need to apply by the 4 September and pay a fee, and results of appeals are out in October. There’s more information on this process on www.examinations.ie.  Good luck with your exam results from all at the ISSU

Results Helpline 2013

The ISSU recommends the exam advice helpline courtesy of National Parents Council in association with the Irish Independent, the Institute of Guidance Councillors, Eircom and supported by the Dept. of Education & Skills.The Institute of Guidance Counselors provides qualified guidance counselors to give advice and support to both students and their parents.

Helpline Phone Number: 1800 265 165

Leaving Cert Helpline;

   Wednesday:14th August –8am – 7pmThursday: 15th August – 8am – 7pmFriday:16th August – 8am – 1pm

CAO Helpline;

Monday 19th August – 8am – 7pmTuesday 20th August – 8am – 7pmWednesday 21st August – 8am – 1pm